When it comes to protecting and maintaining your property, it’s often easy to remember the big, important details, which include paying the mortgage on time and keeping your homeowners insurance current. These large checklist items promote good “ownership hygiene” for your home, rental property, or other real estate, but did you know there’s a whole host of gritty details property owners miss? With regards to caretaking records for your high-end properties, the last thing you want is for something important to slip through the cracks. These critical maintenance tasks are an integral part of your Daily Money Manager’s expertise.
Insurance Reviews, Property Taxes, and Appraisal Reports
While your homeowners insurance is paid on time, DMMs are adept at pointing out any necessary changes to your policy and partnering with your insurance broker to schedule regular insurance reviews. We participate with our clients in these meetings to make sure your coverage still makes sense. Renovations to the property or additions to the home impact the overall value. Over time, common policy elements like replacement coverage cost, property exclusions, new optional endorsements, or the installation of risk-reduction devices cause significant rate changes, which are vital to keep track of to ensure you are adequately insured and that proper valuations and discounts are applied.
The value of your property changes over time; hopefully increasing in value over your ownership period. When market corrections occur, you could be overpaying your property taxes as well. Since they are determined by a property’s assessed value, it’s possible these numbers are not accurate. The current market selling price of your home is frequently not equal to the appraised value. Most jurisdictions’ appraisal cycle is normally 2-4 years, due to the period between which your home is appraised and the volatility of the current market. DMMs work alongside you by hiring an experienced party to file an appeal before the published deadline and respond to any requests for further documentation until the conclusion of the appeal process.
Appraisal reports, whether generated when purchasing a property or refinancing a current property, are another document your DMM requests from your lender or certified appraiser. This report is added into your file to make other endeavors, such as property tax appeals, assessing insurance carrier valuations, or setting a benchmark for quantifying potential capital gains on a future sale.
Site Surveys and Environmental Risks
Current land surveys with its specific measurements and boundaries, plats of your subdivision or block, and easements are also documents your DMM collects to assure you have full knowledge of where your property lines are defined. This will help prevent neighbor disputes or any accidental encroachments, either on your contractor’s part or your neighbor’s. Easement checks also clear up any discrepancies in shared land rights, such as utility access, sewer lines, or shared driveways. Periodic inspections of these documents allow any issues to be caught early and addressed well before they become disruptive or expensive.
Flooding is a more common risk for homeowners, whether you’re in a floodplain or not. DMMs assess current flood zone updates and determine the need for proper flood insurance. Flood insurance rates are also evaluated and updated as needed.
Documents, Records, and Warranties
Along with land surveys and plats, original blueprints and landscape architecture plans are documents your DMM collects. Having reliable access to blueprints is critical for renovations or repairs and allows licensed, insured contractors to rely on knowledge rather than guesswork. These plans identify load-bearing walls and provide essential information for emergency repairs or remediation from flood, storm, or wildfire damage.
Roof repair and replacement history and decades-long roof shingle warranties are helpful in assessing when it’s time to repair or replace your roof. These data points provide necessary, pertinent information essential for renewing or transitioning coverage to a different property insurance carrier.
Warranties on major systems in your home are digitized, especially if repairs need to be made on systems such as your HVAC system, pool heater, passenger elevators, wine cellars, or home theater systems. DMMs maintain all pertinent documentation so it’s ready exactly when needed for future repairs, claims, or transitioning to new service providers.
At Organized Instincts, our certified Daily Money Managers help you keep your property documentation up to date so nothing slips through the cracks. Reach out today to discuss how a DMM can help protect your property portfolio by keeping track of all the gritty details.
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